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Governor Hickenlooper was on Brett Saunders radio show on KBCO (97.3 FM) yesterday and lo and behold he was actually asked about his position on Prop 103, the $3 Billion tax hike that could kill up to 120,000 Colorado jobs. How he did respond? He bobbed and weaved without actually giving an answer. For the non-politician politician that Hick claims to be, he sure did sound like a typical pol avoiding responsibility during the interview.

You can hear the audio clip here:

At the urging of our good friend Bill Menezes, Saunders asked Hickenlooper where he stood on the tax hike and this is what he had to say:

Governor Hickenlooper: You know we haven't taken a formal position. I will say that when I was campaigning that a number of people asked me: was I going to go out and support raising taxes despite how difficult the economy is? And I said I wasn't. Certainly not in the first year. So I'm not supporting it. I haven't come out against it.[Peak emphasis]

You know, let's see what the people of Colorado say. What I'm really interested in is how do we cut waste, how do we get more efficiencies in all areas of government before we decide that we need more money here or more money there. That being said, obviously we made cuts to education in the last two years that are the largest cuts I believe in the history of the state without question. So there is certainly a strong argument that there are additional resources necessary just to get close to where we used to be.

While we appreciate someone in the media finally attempting to get Hick on the record on Prop 103, we're disappointed Saunders let Hick get away with this non-answer answer.

Ballots are going to be mailed to voters in barely more than a month. Voters are making up their minds and it's time for the state's CEO to weigh in one way or the other. I'm not supporting it, but I'm not opposing it, is NOT an answer.

We know the Governor told George Will that he doesn’t have to join these fights because Colorado is such a “purple” state.

[Hickenlooper] says, “We are such a purple state” — Colorado is about one-third Republican, one-third Democrat and one-third unaffiliated — “we can avoid the big fights.”

“You could not pick a worse initiative at the present time,” Hickenlooper said, adding that the requirement would create new red tape for businesses and the city during a period of economic fragility. “If anything, it’s going to cost jobs.”

Prop 103 will costs even more jobs.

While it’s nice to see Hickenlooper making smart calls on issues facing Denver, he is no longer Mayor of Denver. He is Governor.

Prop 103 is on the statewide ballot. There is no option to vote present on the ballot.

Police records obtained by Colorado Peak Politics reveal a long and troubling criminal record for 3rd Congressional district candidate and state Representative Sal Pace (D-Pueblo). His criminal rap sheet reveals two arrests for public urination, one for felony burglary and larceny, as well as a bench warrant for failure to appear on his second public urination charge.

March 12, 2004 Pace was pulled over and charged with driving without a valid license, driving under restraint, driving without proof of insurance, expired license plates and suspended license plates. He pled guilty and was fined for the suspended license plate violation.

August 15, 2003 Pace was arrested for public urination, his second charge for public urination. He pled guilty.

August 29, 2003 A warrant was ordered for Pace’s arrest for failure to appear in court on the public urination charge.

April 20, 1996 Pace was arrested for obscene conduct, which Pace has confirmed was for public urination.

October 5, 1995 Pace was arrested and jailed for felony burglary in the 3rd degree and larceny, which Pace has said was for attempting to steal from his dorm’s vending machine.

These revelations, barely three months after Pace announced his candidacy for the 3rd Congressional district make Pace the worst vetted candidate since Dan Maes.

It’s one thing to have a criminal rap sheet as a state legislative candidate in a safe district where no one pays much attention to the race.

It’s entirely different to run for Congress in a competitive district with a long and illustrious criminal background that invites comparisons to disgraced New York Congressman Anthony Weiner.

Most conspicuous on Pace’s rap sheet is the news that he’s been arrested for public urination not once, but twice. While a Denver Post story last year noted Pace’s first charge for relieving himself in public, the Peak is the first to report news of a second public urination arrest, which occurred in the summer of 2003.

Pace attempted to explain away his first public pee-pee problem, and his contemporaneous burglary arrest, as brain dead moments as a college student.

“When my two boys are older I will use this experience to show them how mistakes can live with you your entire life,” he said.

Fair enough.

But when Pace was nabbed a second time for dropping trow in public he was no longer a college student, but climbing the Democrats’ partisan political ladder.

In 2002, he was a regional director for the Colorado Democratic Party.

In 2003, he was working with environmental groups to help defeat Referendum A, a ballot initiative that would have allowed the Colorado Water Conservation Board to borrow up to $2 billion for public and private water projects by issuing bonds.

A few months after being nailed a second time, Pace worked for then-state Representative John Salazar as a political aide at the Capitol. Pace would go on to be a top level operative in Salazar’s campaign for the 3rd Congressional district in 2004, and ran his re-election campaign against now-Congressman Scott Tipton in 2006.

Pace’s second arrest for public urination can’t be written off as the misdeeds of a stupid college kid; Pace got nailed with his pants down while he was three rungs up the Democrat political ladder (excuse the mixed metaphors).

The incident didn’t occur on a college campus, but rather right next to the state Capitol on one of the most policed streets in the state.

Pace’s frankly embarrassing record of using sidewalks as urinals is only the start of the House Minority Leader’s long and checkered criminal rap sheet.

His driving record in Denver from 2004 includes charges for driving under restraint, a charge that was later pleaded down to a conviction of driving with suspended license plates. Driving under restraint is driving while knowing you had no legal right to, such as driving with a suspended license. The charge carries with it a mandatory minimum sentence of five days in jail.

While he wasn’t jailed for that offense, Pace did end up in the slammer for felony burglary in the 3rd degree and larceny charges on October 5, 1995. Pace has told The Denver Post the incident was in regards to stealing from his dorm’s vending machine.

At the time, Pace told the school newspaper of his alma mater Fort Lewis College, “The Independent,” that he was “under the influence of alcohol” during this incident. Fort Lewis College placed Pace on probation.

The next year, on April 20, 1996 Pace was arrested for obscene conduct. He was also “under the influence of alcohol” during this incident, according to Pace’s comments to The Independent.

Under college rules, the criminal charges spurred a mandatory disciplinary hearing. Pace was sentenced to 20 hours of community service, probation and was told he must attend alcohol counseling.

At the time Pace was a student Senator, and after his criminal melee he was asked to resign his position in exchange for not being suspended from school.

Vice President of Student Affairs for Fort Lewis College Betty Perry told The Independent that Pace was the only student Senator in school history to go before the Disciplinary Hearing Committee.

Pace tried to fight the dismissal, claiming if he was forced to step down it would stifle student voices.

Fort Lewis College did not buy that specious and hollow argument, and he was forced to resign in November 1996.

All of this adds up to a troubling record for a Congressional candidate in a competitive district. Pace’s past has caused trouble for his political career once before, and these new revelations are likely to add major questions about his candidacy.

Representative Max "Children Are Like Maggots" Tyler has made another comment certain to be remembered for its breathless stupidity. In a typo-ridden Labor Day email, Tyler rants and raves about how unions are the greatest thing since sliced bread. They are responsible for all that is right with the world. You know what they could have fixed too? The BP oil spill.

Per Tyler's email:

One example is the BP oil spill, where poorly trained workers and inspectors overlooked key safety standards, with results that hurt many people and damaged communities all along the Gulf coast (Source). Unions provide workers with the tools to follow the highest standards with their work, and it is no surprise that the BP employees were not union members.

Yes, if BP workers were unionized there wouldn't have been a massive oil spill in the Gulf.

Wait. What about all those other oil companies with non-unionized workers that didn't have oil spills? Nevermind that countervailing evidence.

We checked the source Tyler linked to and it doesn't even contain the word union. It talks about reoccurring safety problems with BP.

“OSHA has found that BP often ignored or severely delayed fixing known hazards in its refineries,” said U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, as she slapped a $87.4 million dollar fine on the company in 2009 for its failure to address safety issues.

OUR VIEW: If Congressman Joe Wilson were here, he would probably tell Dana Perino to shut up…to which we would say, Amen!

There are some members of the Bush 43 administration that we wish would just stop talking and go away. This week it’s Colorado native Dana Perino. The former press secretary for Bush 43 made her most recent idiotic comment to Fox today when saying that Members of Congress should attend Obama's campaign speech to Congress on jobs later this week.

She is dead wrong. It's a clear political ploy, not some statesman-like address, and if Members can spend their time a better way that should be their prerogative.

Dana Perino, former press secretary for George W. Bush, said the lawmakers should attend the session because "you're an elected leader, and it's quite a privilege to be able to be there."

Thanks, Dana. You did such a bang-up job communicating Bush's incredibly successful second term agenda that your voice is an important one.

When it comes to political stagecraft, we're pretty sure advice from the team that brought us "Mission Accomplished" is not worth heeding.

And it's not a "privilege" to sit like a 4th grader at an all-school meeting hearing the President lecture you. He could easily just propose a jobs bill, but instead Obama is going his preferred route — political showmanship and speechifying.

It is exceedingly rare for Presidents to address joint sessions of Congress outside State of the Unions (SOTU) and the fact that Obama is doing so with a clear political intention in the middle of a heating up Presidential campaign should make it obvious how inappropriate the entire event actually is.

Skipping a political pep rally is the right of every Member of Congress who doesn't feel like becoming a prop, as Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Il) has said. The 4th graders at Rollie Heath's tax hike press conference didn't realize they were being used as props, but Members are smart enough to see through the BS being peddled by President Obama and talking air heads like Dana Perino.

Speaker Boehner has decided not to have a formal rebuttal to Obama's political charade, which makes complete and obvious political sense to anyone who has been around politics longer than a few seconds. Responding from a hallway to a President who is literally standing head and shoulders above the entire Congress is degrading and only serves to strengthen the Presidential bully pulpit.

The speech is a political move and if Members don't want to be a part of that charade more power to them. Just ignore the failed former press secretaries blathering on otherwise.

A few months back we posted a video of Cory Gardner throttling an EPA bureaucrat into admitting the EPA doesn't look at the employment impact of its regulations. That video went viral quickly, racking up over 65,000 views. It was an important moment caught on tape, as it highlighted the fact that the Obama administration doesn't even bother to figure out how detrimental its new proposed regulations are to employment.

Now that infamous exchange has made it into Mitt Romney's recently released jobs plan (PDF). Check out page 28 from the report:

As we've said before, Cory Gardner is a rising star in Washington, DC. That's probably why the Democrats decided to draw Brandon Shaffer out of Gardner’s 4th CD. Why waste the resources and redistricting position on an almost-certain-to-fail campaign?

As Colorado's best Congressional fundraiser and now someone being quoted by leading Presidential candidates, Gardner is quickly making his mark on the national scene.

The messaging war over proposed EPA regulations is being dominated by conservatives like Gardner who have long complained about the devastating impacts regulation can have.

Even an audience handpicked by Diana DeGette and Nancy Pelosi in Denver complained of the heavy hand of government regulation.

Watching the Democrats play redistricting this year has been like watching an episode of Survivor…they all keep voting each other off of the island. With a small revolving cast of lawyers representing Democrats and their liberal special interest backers filing all sorts of maps, the one thing all the various delineations and designs have in common is the screwing of different Democrats.

Redistricting is the biennial process of redrawing Colorado's seven Congressional district boundaries to reflect population changes identified in the Census. Originally meant to be resolved by a bipartisan commission who was to submit maps to the State Legislature to approve, the rapacious ambition of Senate President and now CD4 candidate Brandon Shaffer caused Democrats to actually filibuster their own redistricting map, thus forcing the issue to the courts. The case is now set to be heard in October.

Throughout the process, the Democrats’ machinations have looked more and more like one of the original reality TV shows.

Let's take a look at the Democrat Tribal Council and how many of their own they have decided to vote off the electoral island in one iteration of their redistricting map or another:

How do you think that DeGette feels about being in a competitive district overnight? She might make a good witness for the Republicans on keeping Denver whole.

The only Democrat who hasn’t been targeted by his own party has been Jared Polis of Boulder — the city that Coloradans across the state begged not to be stuck with. Conspiracy theorists might even postulate that it has something to do with Polis having been a member of the vast left wing conspiracy (i.e. Pat Stryker, Al Yates, et al) who are pulling the puppet strings on redistricting for the Democrats.

Democrats haven't just voted off their own party members through their various redistricting maps, they've also tried to play some strategic games. Attentive readers might have noticed this quote from the Colorado Hispanic Bar Association's lead attorney to The Denver Post:

“What we tried to do is not reinvent the wheel,” said Gina Rodriguez, one of the attorneys for the two Latino groups.

She said their map borrows upon state Senate seats currently being drawn by a bipartisan commission. [Peak emphasis]

Interesting she'd mention the state Senate maps, as they were drawn entirely by the Democrats on the Reapportionment Commission, the state legislative cousin to redistricting.

Guess who the Chair of the Public Policy Committee at the Colorado Hispanic Bar Association is? Scott Martinez. The same Scott Martinez who is the lead attorney for the Democrats on reapportionment.

Scott Martinez is the human conflict of interest in this sordid liberal saga, representing leftist stakeholders near and far. If there is a map being drawn by liberal special interests, Martinez is never far away.

Maybe the State House Democrats should have hired him too, instead of relying on Pat Stryker and Al Yates to look out for their interests. Perhaps as the former Executive Director of the Colorado Democrat Party, Martinez had a soft spot for the upper chamber where Democrats have had more electoral luck.

The other map that has been submitted was drafted by Pueblo DA Bill Thiebaut. In his email to The Denver Post's Lynn Bartels, Thiebaut calls himself a "citizen lawyer" who is just trying to offer some non-biased information.

What he forgets to mention is he was the Democrat Senate Majority Leader last time redistricting occurred 10 years ago, which drew a map that is strikingly similar to the one drafted by Republicans this go-round.

He also had a lawyer for his redistricting map court filing: Stan Matsunaka. Matsunaka was a Democrat Senate President and unsuccessfully ran for Congress in CD4 in 2002 and 2004.

Who do Democrats think they're fooling? Flooding the zone on redistricting with Democrat proposals in all but name is a pretty obvious and poorly played move.

Maybe the Democrats should stick to voting off their own members in Tribal Council — they're certainly not in the running for Survivor All Stars.

The two leading Democrat challengers in Congressional races this cycle face a thorny and difficult dilemma: will they campaign with a President who is most likely going to receive less than 50% of the vote in their respective Congressional districts? With an unpopular incumbent who Governor Hickenlooper says will "have a hard time" winning re-election, these two candidates have to figure out soon how closely tied to Obama they want to be. Based on the results of the latest NBC/WSJ poll, it's probably not in their best interest to be too close.

We wonder how the general consultants attached to Pace and Shaffer's campaigns are reacting to this news this morning from Reuters:

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of 1,000 U.S. adults showed Obama's overall job approval rating at a low of 44 percent, down 3 percentage points since July, while his handling of the economy stands at 37 percent.

A Democratic pollster who helped conduct the survey said the poor results, which contain a 3.1 percentage-point margin of error, suggest Obama is no longer favored to win re-election in 2012.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll of U.S. adults showed that six in 10 Americans rate the president's job on the economy and jobs negatively, while one in three say they are now worse off financially since Obama entered the White House. It has a 3.5 percentage point margin of error.

A third poll of 1,000 likely voters by Washington-based Politico and George Washington University found that 72 percent of voters believe the country is either strongly or somewhat headed in the wrong direction, a jump of 12 percent since last May. That survey's results have a 3.1 percentage point error margin.

What all recent polling and past election performance demonstrates is that Obama is sure to be an electoral albatross. Whether Democrats chose to wear that albatross themselves or let the Republicans lay it on them is the big, unanswered question at this point.

Either way, we'll find out in only three weeks time when Obama comes to raise dollars in Colorado. It will be only his second trip back to the Centennial State since signing the failed stimulus bill here — an ignominious notation sure to be mentioned in every media write up of his trip.

When Obama arrives in Denver, will Sal Pace and Brandon Shaffer be there to greet him?

If you missed the great scoop by the Colorado Statesman's Jody Strogoff on Rick Perry's gargantuan fundraising haul in Aspen, it's a must read for this weekend. The detailed and lengthy look into Perry's fundraiser in the liberal sanctuary provides some key insight into Perry’s budding Colorado campaign.

We asked Strogoff how she got in, but she declined to answer. Fair enough — we wouldn't divulge our trade secrets either.

Perry is currently racing around the country, trying to play catch up on fundraising. Where he's digging for dollars in Colorado shines some light on the early stages of Perry’s effort to build a campaign infrastructure in the Centennial State.

The fundraiser was hosted by two former Gubernatorial candidates, Marc Holtzman and Scott McInnis, though he's surely hoping for better luck in the election than his two hosts have had.

The story strongly hints at the fact that McInnis and Holtzman, and ostensibly their supporters and teams, will play a central role in Perry’s Colorado operation. In the case of Perry and McInnis, their friendship goes back almost three decades. The article provides some colorful detail on their friendship:

Before Perry addressed his supporters, former Congressman Scott McInnis, a Republican from Grand Junction, provided a couple personal anecdotes about his longtime friend. He and Gov. Perry have known each other for the last 25 or 30 years.

It was one of those good news/bad news stories, McInnis said as he began his tale by mentioning his wife Lori, a fifth generation cattle rancher from Meeker on whose family ranch the story played out. McInnis recalled his frequent invites to Perry to elk hunt on the ranch, an activity the two enjoyed doing together over the years.

The most eye-popping part of the story is the size of the fundraising haul. Perry's Aspen fundraiser pulled in a whopping $175,000 in less than two hours. As Strogoff notes, that is the largest in GOP Aspen fundraising history. Not bad for a candidate in the race barely two weeks.

The size of the haul hints at a significant split in the Colorado GOP establishment. While many of the big names and former elected officals have lined up behind Mitt Romney, it appears a sizeable cavalry of big-dollar donors are looking elsewhere.

For more on the fundraiser, and the full detail of the Perry/McInnis relationship, you can read about in the Colorado Statesman here.

State Senator Bob Bacon (D-Ft. Collins) blasted out a fundraising email on Wednesday on behalf of his boss, Senate President and CD4 candidate "Brandon-Mander" Shaffer. In the email he makes a unique pitch for Shaffer's campaign — don't worry that the Democrats’ redistricting map moves Shaffer's home in Longmont out of the exact Congressional district he is running in–Shaffer is running "regardless."

Seeking to sooth concerns among Shaffer supporters that his own party threw him "under the bus," Bacon's email only serves to further the Democrat civil war redistricting narrative. Beyond the narrative, if the Democrat map is chosen by the court, Shaffer stands all of zero and no chance of winning CD4.

From Sen. Bacon's email:

You may have heard that there is a lot of discussion about redistricting in Colorado and Brandon has assured me that regardless of what happens, he will be a candidate for Congress in 2012! [Peak emphasis]

Don't worry Democrats who have donated your dollars already — he'll spend them on a campaign whether it's winnable or not. And while we're on the subject, please send some good money after bad.

While state Representatives and Senators must live in the districts they represent by law, Congressmen have no such legal limitations. Of course, it doesn't sell very well with voters when you don't even live in the area you seek to represent, but you can at least legally mount a campaign.

If Shaffer's campaign is mounted with his house actually in Congressman Jared Polis's (D-Boulder) district, CD2, it could create an odd scenario: Shaffer couldn't even vote for himself.

Considering Shaffer filibustered his own redistricting map in the Senate this past session, when he couldn't get a map Brandon-Mandered to improve his electoral prospects, he's probably already comfortable with not voting for his own side.